Texas senior Matteo Bocchi made history as a Longhorn

By Riley Zayas
Horns Illustrated Contributor

Matteo Bocchi’s path to the Forty Acres was unique, unorthodox and began a whopping 5,558 miles from Austin.

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Bocchi, a senior, grew up in Parma, Italy, a large city known more for its architecture than baseball talent. Yet, Bocchi demonstrated talent for the game of baseball at an extremely young age, which earned him a unique opportunity to get his first taste of baseball in America and ultimately a scholarship with Big 12 heavyweight Texas.

After learning the game at the age of six, Bocchi decided to pursue the sport as he got older, ultimately leading to an opportunity to play in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, at the Little League World Series.

Playing for the first team ever to come to Williamsport from Italy, Bocchi gathered experiences that would impact the young Italian for the rest of his youth playing days.

“You can’t even describe it, you were playing at fields that were not even good, like ten people were watching,” Bocchi said in an interview earlier this season. “Then you go show up there (Williamsport) for your first game and there were 9,000 people watching.”

Although he was moving quickly toward his goal of playing pro baseball, Bocchi did not receive many offers to continue his career after high school. But the “Italian Stallion,” as he is called, only continued to get better and better as the years went by, ultimately leading to his first offer to come play ball in Texas.

The offer came from the small junior college in Odessa, where multiple future Longhorns were beginning their collegiate careers. He quickly accepted the offer and found waiting for him an environment very different from his hometown.

“I actually never went to visit Odessa so I didn’t even know what to expect, but my goal was to play baseball so I went,” he said with a chuckle. “It was basically my only offer so I went.”

Soon though, once he was regularly playing against top JUCO players on a weekly basis, more offers would come, and he would be one step closer to his dream. He would quickly become a standout, going 3-1 his freshman year with 40 strikeouts. It was around that same time that he met a future Longhorn shortstop by the name of Masen Hibbeler, who was also hoping to receive an offer to play at the Div. I level.

The two players were roommates and quickly became friends, sharing a passion for the game of baseball.

“Matteo loves baseball,” Hibbeler, a senior himself, said. “Playing with him the past few years, he may turn around and yell something at the umpire in Italian and the umpire has no idea what’s going on.”

Through their two years at Odessa, the two began to trust and help each other more and more. When Bocchi began to receive offers to play at the next level of college baseball, Hibbeler made sure to go along on the recruiting visits, helping Bocchi and being a positive influence in choosing his next college.

At that same time, Hibbeler had committed recently to play at Texas, and he made sure to let David Pierce and his coaching staff know about his Italian friend from Odessa, and once the coaches saw the 6-foot-4-inch righty throw, they were convinced he could add the their arsenal of relievers.

For Bocchi, Texas proved to be the perfect fit.

“When I came here to come visit, I had no doubt that this was the best place,” he said.

By coming to the Forty Acres, he also made history.

Never before in all the years of Longhorn baseball had an Italian-born player taken the field for the ‘Horns — that is, until Bocchi made his debut Feb. 21, 2018, against Lamar. Since that first appearance on the mound, he has continued to get better and better, always keeping that hard-working mentality he had back in Italy.

“He was knowledgeable and just wanted to be a sponge,” Longhorn legend Greg Swindell said upon seeing Bocchi at a camp in Italy. “At 17 years old, he always wanted to pitch, he was always running, in the weight room, that’s what struck me most about him.”

Through two years on the Forty Acres, he’s become a go-to reliever and recently threw three innings while allowing just one hit in a win over West Virginia. No doubt, he will be used this weekend as the Horns face a must-win situation and Bocchi takes the field for the final time at home in front of a crowd that has witnessed this young man’s journey to the Forty Acres and seen him emerge as a leader on this Texas ballclub.

The Longhorns will honor the 2019 seniors during Friday night’s game against Oklahoma.

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